


Bad Ideas

by Lefaym



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-26
Updated: 2008-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-08 02:53:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/pseuds/Lefaym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor knows that it's a bad idea, but he does it anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Ideas

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jo02 from LJ for the beta.

It was a bad idea, he knew it was a bad idea, every cell and synapse in his highly intelligent, over-evolved brain told him it was a bad idea, but he did it anyway. And the worst part of it was that he didn't really have an excuse for it. He wasn't like humans, whose urges came upon them without warning, often at the most inconvenient times—urges that always demanded attention, one way or another. Arousal for a Time Lord was a strictly controlled thing, a conscious decision, never something that crept upon him unawares.

Not often, anyway.

His first mistake was telling her about Gallifrey. Well, there were other things he could have counted as mistakes, of course. Kissing her in that hospital, for one thing, although, really, how else was he supposed to get a DNA sample? (He could have assimilated some of her hair, he supposed, but that would have been plain rude.) And it was true that sharing a bed in Elizabethan London probably hadn't been the wisest idea, because he knew that beds always gave humans strange ideas. But telling her about Gallifrey in the dank, abandoned under-streets of New New York was what really did it, because when he told her about Gallifrey, he told her things that he'd never told anyone since the Time War, not even Rose.

Not that Martha gave him much choice about telling her, really, but he didn't needed to wax lyrical about it in that way, the silver trees and the rich red grass. (But then, it was difficult not to wax lyrical about Gallifrey, at least now that it was gone.) He didn't stop talking when he saw the tears in her eyes, and when she'd leaned forward to grab his hands (as he told her of the purple flames that had melted the Karillon Glaciers), he held on tight.

For a moment, he let himself pretend that it was Rose there instead, that Rose's thumbs were gently stroking his palms, that it was Rose listening to the tales of his home, gone forever now. But Martha wasn't Rose, she could never be Rose, and deep down (well, not so deep down, actually), he knew that he was far too clever to fool himself on that one. He tried to pretend anyway, though, and maybe it was because he was trying so hard that he didn't resist when she moved forward and kissed him.

It was always interesting, kissing humans; they always tasted a little bit like the places in which they'd grown up. Oh, there were other things too of course—there was every meal they'd ever eaten, and their blood type, and those odd metallic tinges of emotion—but always, every time, the place they'd grown up in came through it all. And Martha (he remembered it from that first time too) tasted like Greater London.

Like Rose. Just a little.

Of course, he'd never kissed Rose properly, not really. Once to save her life, and another time, right here in New New York (but Rose had been possessed that time, and he'd tasted that too, it hadn't really been her). He'd never kissed her simply because he wanted to, even though he had wanted to, and she'd wanted him to too. He was a Time Lord: always distant, always in control.

Not that it had done him any good, in the end. Rose was gone, she would always be gone, and Martha was here, kissing him now, helping him up, leading him back to the TARDIS, where he fumbled for his key. When they were inside, she kissed him again, and what was the point of resisting, really? It wouldn't bring Rose back, and maybe if he'd done this with Rose, if he'd given in... well, there was no point in thinking about that now. Martha would be gone soon too, he'd be taking her home (though he'd let her have one or two more trips, maybe), and just this once, he could let himself go.

They ended up in the small room that Martha had temporarily claimed as her own. The bed sheets were pink and yellow, and they were soft and warm against his bare skin as he let Martha push him down onto them. And Martha was soft and warm too, as she caressed him and surrounded him, but she was hard as well, beneath it all. As he reached his climax, he wondered if Rose might have felt that way too.

They lay tangled together for a little while afterwards, because, well, he knew that by her human standards, it would seem a little mean to just get up and leave. But when she tried to hold him closer and asked him for more stories of Gallifrey, he pulled away and stood up.

"I, er, need to check on the console," he said, excusing himself as he dressed. "The bio-dynamic symbiosis drive is probably over-heating."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure," she replied, just a little bit too quietly.

She didn't say anything else as he continued to dress, but when he turned around, straightening his tie, she called out suddenly, "Doctor—"

He turned to face her with a bright empty smile. "Yes?"

"Are we—I mean—should—" She broke off for a moment, and her tone changed. "I think, you know, it's probably better if we just pretend that this never happened. Probably better if we don't complicate things."

She was lying, of course; twenty-first century humans always smelled vaguely of cinnamon and blue Porotian daffodils when they lied in that way, secretly hoping that they wouldn't be allowed to get away with it. (Rose had done it, once or twice.) He took a deep breath, and nodded.

"Good idea," he said, knowing that it was anything but.


End file.
